Facebook quarterly profit surges 186% to $2 billion

San Francisco: Facebook said Wednesday its profit leapt 186 percent from a year ago to USD 2 billion, as the world's biggest social network blasted past most analyst forecasts for the second quarter.

With its global base of monthly active users growing to 1.71 billion, Facebook saw a 59 percent jump in total revenues to USD 6.4 billion, mostly from online advertising.

Facebook shares jumped seven percent in after-hours trade on the stronger-than-expected results.

"Our community and business had another good quarter," said Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

"We're particularly pleased with our progress in video as we move towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services."

Facebook has been dominating the social media space as well as related online advertising as it seeks to diversify into areas such as messaging, virtual reality and other fields.

The research firm eMarketer estimates that Facebook is taking in two-thirds of social media ad revenues, dominating rivals such as Twitter, which this week reported disappointing results.

The number of monthly active users, a key metric for social networks, grew 15 per cent from a year ago, Facebook said.